Criterion to Release Jonathan Demme’s A Master Builder

Posted August 5, 2014 04:16 PM by Webmaster

Jonathan Demme has confirmed that his latest feature film, A Master Builder (2013), will join The Criterion Collection. A preliminary street date for this upcoming release, however, has not yet been revealed.

Here's what director Demme told Deadline: "Every filmmaker dreams of having their work wind up in The Criterion Collection, so I am pretty ecstatic about this news. Whatever quality level comes next above 'gold standard' is the cinematic realm inhabited by Criterion."

Official synopsis: A Master Builder unites Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme with two of American theatre and cinema's most ingenious provocateurs, André Gregory and Wallace Shawn. It is based on Gregory's near-legendary theatrical production of Shawn's adaptation of Ibsen's Master Builder Solness. Halvard Solness (Wallace Shawn), a successful and egomaniacal architect who spent a lifetime bullying everyone around him, now faces his own mortality. When Hilde (Lisa Joyce), a mysterious young woman, comes to visit, the once dominating, controlling and narcissistic Solness finds himself revived in every possible way. Intense, intimate and painful, A Master Builder is a witty, mystical and psychologically complex interpretation of Ibsen's masterpiece.

No comments yet? Well I haven't seen this yet, but I enjoy Ibsen & I'm happy to see Demme get his 3rd film into the Criterion Collection and another Andre Gregory & Wallace Shawn film to stand beside My Dinner with Andre. Maybe a My Dinner With Andre upgrade to Blu-Ray will be released at the same time.

If only Silence of the Lambs would get a Blu-Ray upgrade and go back into print. But I know that will probably never happen.

Think I'm going to see this sucker tomorrow in Chicago -- I like the Shawn/Gregory Louie Malle movies: My Dinner w Andre and Vanya on 42nd Street. (No time to type out that protracted W word, I'm in a hurry!)